Inspiring Line Artists

Thought the topic deserved its own thread. Share your favorite artists who inspre you with the quality of their linework and drawing or draughtsmanship. It would be great to include any images or notes on how these artists work. I think it would also be appropriate to share ideas and concepts about the expressive qualities of line such as rhythm, tension, etc.

There have been some great images and links already provided in another thread so I'll let those people share them here if they choose (even though Kjesta already took one of my favorites!).

And then God said, "Let us make man in our likeness and our image. Let us make him ridiculously hard to draw so that poor artists everywhere will have to spend 10,000+ hours failing repeatedly before they can begin to capture the form and likeness onto a two-dimensional surface." And there was man. And it was good. And artists everywhere lost their minds.

And then God said, "Let us make man in our likeness and our image. Let us make him ridiculously hard to draw so that poor artists everywhere will have to spend 10,000+ hours failing repeatedly before they can begin to capture the form and likeness onto a two-dimensional surface." And there was man. And it was good. And artists everywhere lost their minds.

@manlybrian - great observations on the lessons learned from those guys.

@Ariel9 - That is some beautifully designed work! But...who is it? Really want to check out more...thanks!

@SoufMeng - Great finds there...I'll definitely be looking up a few of those people - thanks, that is what I was hoping for. And imagine that, a Damien Hirst I like and can relate to!

@Vertical - what a great link! Thanks for that. I found it tricky to navigate back out (ok, not too bad if you just hit the "home sweet home" link) so I'm going to repost the link a little higher up: Animation Production Archive

Thanks again everyone! Here's a few gems from some fellow CA members...personally I think these members are a real gold mine here but they stay tucked away in the Fine Arts forums and not many people are aware of them:

I just realized I didn't share any actual comic page by Sergio Toppi...I'm afraid, Jeff, that I don't know much about him either, except that he's done a wonderful comic re-telling of the One Thousand and One Nights, and he's one of the less known great italian comic masters who saw their biggest success in the 70's magazines like Linus, AlterLinus, AlterAlter, Il Grifo... You can find them pretty cheap now, and they have wonderful artists, sometimes French too, like Moebius.

Another artist from back then who was extremely talented and died tragically young, much more well known here, is Andrea Pazienza, whose marker work is just amazing, but since this is about line I'm going easy on the amazingly rendered backgrounds...

And then God said, "Let us make man in our likeness and our image. Let us make him ridiculously hard to draw so that poor artists everywhere will have to spend 10,000+ hours failing repeatedly before they can begin to capture the form and likeness onto a two-dimensional surface." And there was man. And it was good. And artists everywhere lost their minds.

Bill Sienkiewicz was already said but well, you can't have too much good stuff.
Yoshitaka Amano definitely.
I'm also personally fond of Jill Thompson's and Milo Manara's lines (though it's bit harder to find a good not NSFW example quick) as well as less "artsy" lineart of Becky Cloonan .

Well, here be couple more.
Guy Davis (first five images), he has several different techniques of inking and they all look good.
Sean Gordon Murphy, already mentioned in the other thread.
Dustin Ngyen, at least his ink wash stuff.
C. Scott Morse (especially I suggest looking through his Ancient Joe comic)
and I personally really like reading old Marvel classic collections which are printed without colours, there's some awesome inks hidden in those, which, though not exactly fancy still bring a tear to my with their quality. Can't remember the artist here but it was from Ghostrider.

Bernard Partridge and Linley Sambourne were two British illustrators of the late 19th - early 20th century. Their work appreared regulary in the magazine "Punch" which these images were taken from.
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